By 1980 Ian Abercrombie had parlayed chance, talent, hard work into a perch from which he soared. He yoked himself to the school newspaper just long enough to synthesize the three major reporting manual styles. (Chicago. Times. AP.) Quickly frustrated with school editors whose "lazy white man" allegiances outweighed merit, he eventually bluffed his way into column inches on T-town's morning paper, The Territorial.
While locals who'd made their journo bones ably staffed the periodical, its masthead ran top-heavy with diminished hacks who'd migrated to the cheap and easy less demanding West. Dubious bona fides aside, experience in any Top Five market clouded publishers' judgment and carpeted many an undeserved path in rose petals.
Deficient as he knew his college clips were, Abercrombie's brashness exceeded his proof. Maybe those doing the vetting hazily recognized in him who they'd been yesterday. Or had believed themselves to have been yesterday. Regardless he made the initial sale.
Once the fresh stringer figured the paper's lay, Abercrombie connived off the usual newsprint stations of the cross. Collecting/distributing copy, tacking on inspired additions directly slurred from last calls, faking being regaled by that big story from '61, he left to narrowbacks or mousy chicks speeding towards social dysfunction. He used every chance possible to hit the bricks.
Perhaps owing to his decided outsider status, Abercrombie noticed how vast segments of the community suffered neglected reportage. If it weren't for sports, entertainment or crime, few would've known blacks, Indians and Mexicans resided in T-town. And forget pop culture.
Despite his large ego -- a necessity -- Abercrombie did not see himself as a savior. Just an opportunist. Far less hidebound than any Eastern newsroom, the Territorial staff looked upon his impetuousness amused. Their consensus was "who cared about marginal people?" And fast fading fads? Pffft! Nonetheless it was the West. Risk while evading recklessness had tamed the region. Those it didn't kill, thrived. Or were sent packing.
Abercrombie received one generous coil of rope.
Night of the reception for Professor Downs' bestseller buddy, Abercrombie hadn't gone as a reporter but as an invitee. However, should the guest of honor drop an epigram or two, preferably pithy and vermouth dry, dispense some brilliance, well, pad out and pen scribbling.
Downs himself had extended the invitation. Several of Abercrombie's fellow low-rung strivers attended along with those few less self-absorbed graduates doggedly pursuing MFAs.
Unlike Abercrombie, the venue, the crowd therein, discomforted them. He imagined they preferred confinement in student hovels seen as scribes' dens. Something about suffering for "craft." Right. There where dirty plates and laundry piled, these someday serious writers opened metaphoric veins. Anemic writing aptly demonstrated their thin understanding of the world.
At times, Abercrombie wished for an older adult's humility. But then he reasoned false modesty worse than arrogance.
English department professors and their spouses, or, a-hem, that semester's sweet young assistant, larded the guest list. Distinguished department supporters augmented them. Given the evening's magnitude, Abercrombie broke out blazer and slacks, a button-down shirt and a badly-knotted tie. Standing easily in freshly-polished Oxfords, he felt overdressed though extremely presentable.
Guests made do on shrimp, an open bar and futile attempts at clever conversation. The generous circulation of older women, which at his age, 21, relative, struck him oddly. Those piquing him weren't crones or haggard. Women throughout their 30s and 40s fluttered around Duff Scharlach's gallery. Working on some antsy schedule, these women frequently landed, nervously burbled, then flew. He assumed most were faculty wives. Their flightiness seized his eye.
Not regal but many encroaching upon that attribute, one whiffed former easy attraction yielding to future labored allure. Most he could imagine younger. His age. Still very callow, Abercrombie somehow intuited beyond their self-enforced postures, pert appearances, they struggled against a kind of diminishment. Something behind their piercing eyes betrayed an awareness of insidious irrelevance. Of a shift. From getting by on raw sexual magnetism towards honing wiles.
That night he saw and grasped but never fully comprehended until his own 30s. Later among his age-set females lingering and loss clarified themselves in his male outlook.
The man of the hour demeaned the process feting him. Abercrombie wondered how many of his temporary admirers heard honesty and courage in the author's contrariness, and whether the rest suspected drunkenness lubricated his erstwhile confessions.
'Lear or Mailer?' Abercrombie thought.
Downs gestured for him. He made introductions. Abercrombie recognized the stately female figure beside Downs. Across the last three years he'd seen her waiting on lines at the Valley National Bank campus branch. Usually she dressed down, as if during some heavy-duty masonry repairs she suddenly decided a deposit or withdrawal was urgent.
The department chairman introduced him to Clare Chetwynd. Abercrombie placed Mrs. Chetwynd in her late 50s, early 60s. Tonight despite wearing what passed as Western couture and understated jewelry that clearly indicated one robust financial background, Mrs. Chetwynd didn't have a society woman's handshake. The matron's firm grip increased her substance.
The blue-eyed ramrod gauging him retained shape around a bosom he doubted plunged much when unfettered. Her face hadn't broken much, while rinse thwarted gray throughout her auburn sweep. Abercrombie needn't dial back far to see a younger Mrs. Chetwynd as mantrap attractive -- without taking the last step where vanity stumbled into ridicule.
"Ian is the fellow I told you about, Clare," Downs said. Proud nearly parental inflection rode his voice. Abercrombie swallowed a grin.
She replied with an easy seductive purr. "Good. This country can't have too many competent talented men."
Her compliment impelled an already straightened Abercrombie to stand taller. Peripherally he noticed Downs further square his own shoulders. Mrs. Chetwynd pointed her comments at the younger man.
"Bobby, oh, Professor Downs, gave us a sheaf of your writing. Your newspaper work is engrossing. It almost embarrasses me to realize how ignorant I am about our city. And I've lived here nearly 40 years!"
"A lot of my stuff comes from the margins," Abercrombie said. "That is if people can be so safely described. Usually awareness of them is sufficient. Is it enough to know then ignore what's underfoot? What I've tried doing, and what The Territorial generally allows, is basing articles on one premise: these are also your neighbors. A lot of subscribers find that disturbing, I hear."
Probably hearing untimely precocity, Downs redirected focus. "But Ian's fiction is much more artful. The, er, immaturity is giving way to twisty ambiguity." He turned to Abercrombie. "Ian, there are times when we amuse ourselves with your purported fiction pieces. Sometimes none of us can determine whether you've presented disguised facts or facts lacquered under fictionalization."
Mrs. Chetwynd and Downs chuckled. Abercrombie kept mum. He knew silence heightened mystery, which would increase attraction, and therefore interest.
A female fourth voice opined. "Sounds like the entire modern literature canon since 1950. Should anyone be commending any practitioner of such facile skills?"
